by Dianne
8. December 2011 04:39
Christmas time is my favorite time of year. Yes, it’s the busiest especially when you own two ornament sites, but I love decorating my house for the holidays. There are so many great, inexpensive decorating ideas that I’m not sure where to begin. In the next four blog posts, I will provide you with ideas on how to decorate your house to extremes. To me this means that every wall, floor, ceiling, stair railing, table, couch, chair, and door is fair game for decorating. Did I miss anything? I actually only decorate the rooms guests will see are the main rooms we live in: foyer, kitchen, living, dining, family and bathrooms. But those are enough rooms to still go to decorating extremes!
First, let’s start with your front door entrance. We won’t cover exterior decorations except the entrance, as that would be too long (and an excuse to write another blog post!). I recently purchased a small 2’ live evergreen tree in a pot and added some red bulbs and ribbon. I positioned it on the step into the alcove in front of my entrance door. I used to buy the candy cane shaped wreath from my local grocery store to hang from the front door but now that we carry a pre-lit wreath with red berries and pine cones, I will have to buy one of those. I apologize for the plug but there’s a lot to be said about buying items that last more than one year and don’t shed their needles and make a mess.
Strings of white blinking lights are stapled (use a staple gun) to the alcove frame surrounding the entry way and faux garland is draped around the door to the house. A wood reindeer personalized with our family name greets guests by saying, “Welcome to our House” with our name on a plaque below the reindeer. Visitors can wipe their feet on the light bulb rug before they enter the house. It makes a beautiful entrance.
Second, the foyer is what your guests will see next so I like to decorate a lot in that area. Suggestions include:
- Christmas doorknob hanger decorations that let you know when someone enters from the bells ringing.
- A large snowman light added to the second story foyer window facing the front, surrounded with small red lights, make the windows stand out from outside.
- Garland wrapped around the stair rail leading to the upstairs. Each year I attach different items to the garland to make it unique. Sometimes I have used ornaments, holiday floral picks, and ribbon. One of my favorite looks is created by adding light-weight plastic cherubs that come in gold or red. Each cherub is posed in a different position with a musical instrument so there is variety to the display. You can attach them with floral wire, decorative pipe cleaners, or the ties you get with certain garbage bags. Garland with small lights also looks great and you can still add your favorite trimmings.
- Although I don’t decorate upstairs, I do add poinsettia plants on every other step going upstairs.
I hope I have provided a few ideas that you may have overlooked. Ideas for decorating your walls and tables will appear in the next blog post. The last part will give you decorating ideas for the bathroom, dining room & kitchen.